CTD Preparation Tips

+ PSI Online Exam Experience Sharing

December 2020

Chii Chew Hong

Official CTD Exam Preparation Guideline
• Link:
• https://education.ni.com/badges
/resources/1259/certified-
teststand-developer-ctd
Topics
• On the Exam Day
• Things to Practice Before Exam
• Other Guidelines
On The Exam Day
For those who taking exam online using PSI
Assume you have registered exam, otherwise please go to the NI page mentioned
earlier to register first!
On the Exam Day
• Prepare your identification card
• Ensure the room environment met the PSI requirements
• You will not allow to speak to anyone during the exam, so make sure no
disturbance from other people.
• Even you will be asked to avoid speaking loud to yourself during exam
• No food or drinks.
• No external or secondary monitor.
• Must use Google Chrome to do the exam
• Log in to the exam before 30 minutes of scheduled time
On the Exam Day
• Where to access the exam?
• Go to https://education.ni.com/badges/resources/1259
• Click the button as shown below
• Login to your NI account and proceed and will redirect you to the PSI page
On the Exam Day
• Where to access the exam?
• If above link invalid, browse
by following:
• Go to ni.com/badges
• Click Explore Professional
Certifications
• Click Certified TestStand
Developer will bring you to
the page
On the Exam Day
• After launch the exam, it will show you where to install the required
Google Chrome extension
• Follow the page instructions to setup camera and screen sharing, take
photo of your ID and your face, record a video of screening your room
environment
• Then, a proctor will connect to you through the live chat box.
• Follow the proctor instruction and repeat the above checking again.
• No other desktop application is opening or running. It will be checked before
the exam by using Windows Task Manager in Fewer Details (must no
application shown in the list)
• Once done, a virtual machine is launched and exam starts.
Virtual Machine Environment
• Unsupported shortcut keys
• Close window like Alt + F4, Ctrl + W
• Switch and arrange window like
• + Tab, + Left or Right or Up
• Alt + Tab, Ctrl + Tab
• If not mistaken, Ctrl + S is also not supported
• Reason: They are shortcuts override by the Google Chrome browser. When
you use these shortcuts, it will apply to your browser!
Virtual Machine Environment
• Accidentally close the browser??? Don’t panic!
• Quickly go to the browser history (Ctrl + H) and search the link to get back the
session.
• Should be the one called “PSI Online – Test-details”
• After grant the access to camera and screen sharing, you will be reconnect to
the session. Use the chat box to tell the proctor you accidentally close the
browser and request him to open back the virtual machine for you.

• Cautious: Not allow to open new browser tab during exam. Close it
immediately if accidentally opened.
Virtual Machine Environment
• Supported shortcut keys
• Copy paste
• TestStand supported shortcut keys
• F2 – Rename or Edit value of selected cell
• Ctrl + Space – Auto complete
• Tab – Go to next focus control
• Ctrl + D – Close opened report
• Ctrl + F5 or F5 – Run sequence
• F8, F10 – Step Into and Step Over during debugging
• Probably could use F9 – Toggle breakpoint on selected step
• Other than these, you may try out yourself
• Can find out more TestStand shortcut keys from here and here
Virtual Machine Environment
• Your CTD exam materials will be on desktop exam folder. It contains:
• Exam paper in PDF file
• An executable to package your answer into zip file
• Instruction of using the executable is in the exam paper. Basically,
when run the executable:
• You are asked to provide path to your sequence file.
• You are asked to provide the destination of the exported zip file location
• So, it means you can write your sequence in any place, and it will export to
the destination you specified.
• To be safe, just follow the path shown in screen shot picture in the exam paper.
Virtual Machine Environment
• The zip file packaged by the executable will contain:
• Your sequence file
• Some TestStand station configuration files (such as GeneralEngine.cfg) to
prove you are using settings required in the exam question. Example:
Virtual Machine Environment
• Therefore, when you finish the solution:
• Make sure the station settings and result processing
settings follow the requirements in the exam
questions.
• Close the sequence file and run the executable to
package the zip file.
• Can unzip to check the contents are not corrupted.
• Tell the proctor where is your location of the zip file.
Virtual Machine Environment
• The displayed screen size in virtual machine is quite limited. Probably
related to your laptop/computer screen size as well.
• Unfortunately you cannot use extended monitor.

• Sometimes the dialog box in the TestStand (such as Report Options) is

hard to fit the height of displayed size, causing you fail to click the
buttons which are blocked or out of screen.
• Make sure you know how to enable auto-hide of Windows start menu in
Windows 10 if it blocks the bottom of the dialog. Or you can try to move it to
stay vertical on the left or right
Things to Practice Before Exam
Things to Practice
• TestStand shortcut keys which are supported as aforementioned.
• Practice “not to use” unsupported keys during the online exam
• Familiarized switching between open windows and resize windows with only
mouse click
• Practice how to place PDF and TestStand window side-by-side using mouse
• The PDF viewer is Acrobat Adobe Reader. You can also practice to
familiarize its features such as how to add highlights and comment to
the document.
• Know how to set your preferred TestStand Panes arrangement view
and then lock them up.
 My Preferred TestStand View Visible settings
column to show what
is different from
Auto-hide Insertion default step settings
Palette because
step can be added
by right click in Step Variables pane
Pane shown in full height
as possible on the
Move sequence right
pane to left for easy
navigation between
main and sub
sequences
Step Settings and
Analysis Results are
arranged in tabs
 Right click step: Select your preferred list view:

UI Configuration

Default:

Large:

Lock/Unlock UI Configuration so avoid

accidentally moving panes by dragging
Cosmetic – Placing Space For Readability

The space is a Label step

type with empty name and
hidden icon

Space improves readability

of logically grouped steps
Multi-Select Steps + Edit Step Settings
Hold Ctrl and mouse click
OR
Hold Shift and mouse click
to select multiple steps.

And then you can start to

edit the step settings for
all selected steps!

Also applicable to code

module parameters!
Replace Step with Other Step Type / Adapter

Use these controls to

change any step to any
step type and adapter. For
example, replace Label
with Action step type, etc.

If the step type before and

after the change are quite
alike, their common
settings and parameters
will remain. Need to
double check.
 Expression Auto Complete
Ctrl + Space to populates property or API
available to the object
For cells that asks for a value from a variable, you can just type
the variable name (full or partial) without root name such as
FileGlobals, Locals and Parameters. Then press Enter (to go
next focus cell), it will auto-complete for you!
Hit Enter
Press F2 to Edit Next Cell Value
Append/Insert Data to the End of Array
PropertyObject.SetValNumber ( lookupString, options = 1, newValue)
➔ Options = 1 allows you to insert a new value to any index of an array even it is out of
size of current array

Example:
• Locals.Array ➔ Your array to append to
• Locals.Index ➔ Location to add
• Locals.Num ➔ The value you insert
 Allocate Array Size
1D Array: PropertyObject.SetNumElements ( numElements, options = 0)

Multi-Dimension Array: ArrayDimensions.SetBounds ( lowerBounds, upperBounds)

Coerce Number to “Numeric” Boolean
Convert Enum to Numeric Array
 Show Your Understanding of Code Modularity
• Code Modularity is about splitting a long sequence into small
reusable pieces
• Not required, and not contributing any marks. But it is good to practice!

Sequence Type 1: Callback

• Predefined sequence called by process
model
• Right click >> Sequence File Callback >>
Select a callback sequence and click
Add Notice the
Icon color!
Sequence Type 2: Normal Sequence
• Custom sequence that you can add and
name freely (Right click >> Insert Sequence)
• Used as a sub-sequence called by other
sequence
 Show Your Understanding of Code Modularity
MainSequence
ProcessSetup ProcessCleanup
(Repeated)

• ProcessSetup
• Run only once at the very beginning of a Test
UUTs / Single Pass.
• Used for initializing hardware or variable that
needs to be done once

• MainSequence
• Your main part of your code. This is repeated for
Test UUTs
• UUT initialize and close can put into the Setup &
Cleanup step group
 Show Your Understanding of Code Modularity
MainSequence
ProcessSetup ProcessCleanup
(Repeated)

• ProcessCleanup
• Run only once at the very end of a Test UUTs /
Single Pass.
• Used for closing hardware or release the
reference that needs to be done once
 Show Your Understanding of Code Modularity
• Normal subsequence
• Define the sub-sequence parameters in order to
pass value from caller sequence
Caller Sequence: MainSequence • You can also use FileGlobals to pass variable which is
global to the sequence file (such as device session)

Sub-Sequence: Test
 Example Use of Sub-Sequence
From CTD Sample Exam:

When there is common of multiple test groups, but they

vary in terms of tested values, define a sub-sequence to
share the common flow of these tests

Note:
In exam, it may not list the steps in each test group repeatedly as seen
on the right. It may only list once and ask for repeating the test for
different conditions. Read the test specifications carefully!
Other Guidelines
Other Guidelines
• Any difference in the structure of the question from CTD sample
exam?
• Quite similar, no much difference.
• Even the power supply and DMM APIs are quite similar to CTD sample exam. But should
read them carefully.
• The device operation may presented in a state diagram. Make sure you know
how to read.
Other Guidelines
• Tips to familiarize with the question and code modules quickly?
• The device under test is likely something you can find in your surrounding
(like a panel washing machine, etc). Its operation is not hard to imagine.
• So, before getting into any detail, use your common sense to visualize in your
mind how the device operates by looking at its inputs/outputs.
• You can start from the device connection diagram
• Once you have clear a image, then confirm your imagination by looking at the
details. Human are good at noticing the difference!
• Draft your test sequence using Label step type first, so you can get the full
picture of the flow.
• The code module are quite straight forward to the test specification. So no
need to read all the APIs in detail before writing code. Just skim them through
first.
Other Guidelines
• Anything else?

Practice
makes
Perfect!
*Don’t do it only last minute
;-)